Traditionally speaking, the Buffalo Bills should be right in the middle of the AFC playoff race. If they were in another division or another year, it would be a different story at 6-6. But in 2016 in the AFC East, Buffalo is all but eliminated from the playoff race.
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This graph from FiveThirtyEight.com shows that a 6-6 team usually has a 29% chance of making the playoffs. Not great, but still doable. With the AFC west running amok on the AFC wild card race and the New England Patriots owning the AFC East (again), Buffalo’s actual chances in 2016 are much lower - just 10%.
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Over at Football Outsiders, they ran their simulations but has now eliminated Buffalo’s defensive game against Jacoby Brissett from their calculations due to its outlier status. Essentially, the Bills defense did way better in that game than the rest of the season so it doesn’t predict how they will perform against other teams. Buffalo’s 10% chance of making the playoffs is eleventh in the AFC:
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Finally, the New York Times has the Bills at just a 6% chance of making the playoffs. The number jumps to 11% with a win over the Pittsburgh Steelers but they are eliminated to less than 1% with a loss. Even winning all four of their remaining games gets the Bills to just a 1-in-3 chance of ending their postseason drought, according to the simulator.